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creating the social media video of tim anderson reading "I am so very excited to play for Tony La Russa" while Reinsdorf holds a gun to his head.

This feels like the "us against the world (world being the fans of the team he owns)" scenario Jerry thrives on and by thrives I mean stubbornly ignores until it consumes the org and he pulls the trigger for change 3-4 years too late.

The news y'all have been waiting for.

Good lord. @fathom was right, this does feel like Tennessee. Can't we just have nice things? I'm telling you they should have just hired Thome. Everyone would be like "it goes against everything hahn said...but hey I love Jim Thome"

This wouldn't have happened if I wasn't bored waiting for your buddy to tell us how to feel.

@Jose Abreu IS RIGHT, I WAS WRONG I got confused when he started liking a bunch of old tweets making me think we were past the speculation. Editing old posts.

??

I see Stroman liking a bunch of tweets making fun of jay cutler, and praising keith law for putting him at #4 free agent.

edit: incorrectly said I couldn't find the likes attributed to him

I'm kinda hoping the blow back here matters, though I don't think JR reads enough twitter and if he does his feed is garbage. Also I think most of these stroman things are fake. But this is good for us, I think.

come on man.

nothing we didn't know aside from that today it may not be announced. He resisted idea that Hahn was against this, saying typically JR would not circumvent staff and push for a hire. He may suggest but not force it, adn this would be different. He sounded like a wounded puppy.

Texted my old friend tim from college. I asked him if I should be worried. Tim said he thinks he'll be fine. he's a cards fan. so basically book your world series tix.

This interview was pathetic but Bruce says he only heard announcement would be before the weekend, not necessarily today. Also he sounded scared of every question.

I imagine that bruce loves this. It's been hard on him having to try and follow baseball, bringing back characters from 10-20 years ago? Right in his wheel house. He's going to list out every name he remembers from then.

I'm optimistic as hell about this team, but it's not yet very deep especially in pitching. If Giolito went down that would be a body blow and they'd need to really figure something out in season. If they get some good (and I mean good, not filling out #5 with gio gonzalez types) depth in SP I'm as optimistic as any. But 162 game seasons are hard!

Stars and scrubs team at the top of their budget that just needs a few pieces to scrape into the playoffs? Sounds like a job for Rick Hahn.

Very possible. Playoffs not even close to guaranteed next year with bullpen regression and without key additions to SP.

dream release today: "After talking it over with my family, I have decided to stay in retirement. I thank the white sox and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf for his interest, and may find a role within the organization to stay involved in the game of baseball that I love." ^ tony you can just copy that.

This is true and it's not true. 1) I think players have more power in their communications than they did then. Stuff gets out more readily. 2) He had lots of open battles with Smith, Rolen, Reyes and Rasmus. To not even be a cards fan and know this stuff should tell you something. This team needed some more accountability but was mostly on the same page. TLR plays favorites, and that could cause some open rifts. Will that affect on-field winning? Maybe not, but he hasn't had a lot of very young teams. I don't think Matheny was a great manager, but I do wonder how TLR does with the '13 cardinals which were such a different group than 11.

Oh, I see the confusion. That's actually how we measure age.

The good news is there's not that much difference between managers so I don't really care if he knows the difference between Geren or Quatraro.

I doubt it was an explicit trade-off. I can see this meaning JR is very excited, and if JR is excited I think he'll be able to stretch and find ways to make money work.

Great stuff from Law in here: https://theathletic.com/2153856/2020/10/29/keith-law-top-40-free-agents-ranking-of-the-mlb-offseason-2020/?redirected=1 One bit I hadn't thought of: 39. Chris Archer, RHP, age 32 Archer missed the 2020 season after surgery to repair thoracic outlet syndrome, and he had his worst-ever season in 2019 after a mid-season trade to the Pirates the year before. He has a great arm, with an out pitch in his slider, and he wouldn’t be the first pitcher to struggle under the previous Pirates’ coaching staff and find success elsewhere. If he’s healthy, he should have plenty of suitors on one-year deals. Other favorable writeups for Gausman as well. Also favorable bit on Kluber that was nice to see, as I wasn't sure how risky I was being still being interested i him: 33. Corey Kluber, RHP, age 35 Kluber threw just one inning in 2020 before a slight (grade 2) tear in his throwing shoulder ended his season, although it’s unclear if he will require surgery. That comes on the heels of a 2019 season lost to a broken arm after he was hit by a line drive and a lat muscle injury he suffered while rehabbing. We haven’t seen the “real” Kluber since 2018, when he led the AL in innings pitched and was third in the Cy Young voting, although his stuff was pretty close to normal when he did pitch in the last two seasons (by velocity, with slightly lower spin rates). Assuming the muscle tear has healed, I’d certainly throw him a one-year deal with incentives to see if the 2018 version — or something close to it — is still in there.

Many here yes. He's not going to become a manager of any big league club anytime soon.